Healthy habits for small children

[alinakathryn]

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new to LHC. I've just changed my routine to CO. I'm starting to see results. My hair is fairly damaged so it will take a little time before I see anything major. At least I'm seeing progress.

I would like to help my children keep the beautiful hair that they have now. My little ones are quite young, 2 and 3.5. Does anyone here have young children that you use the LHC methods of either CO or CWC on? Or any other LHC method? Have you found any tear free products that work for your methods? Tear free is currently still important in our house. We are in the process of growing out their bangs.

Thanks
Sarah

[rubyann]

Hi and welcome to LHC, Sarah.

My dd is soon to be 6 years old with very curly hair. I've CO'd her exclusively since she was 2 or so.

What I do is this: use a cup or hand held shower to wet hair, glop on tons of conditioner, scrub/massage scalp with conditioner, work it through the length. We still use a dry wash cloth for the rinse out, she will fold it in two and place it over her face and tip her head all the way back while I rinse with cup or hand held shower head. This way absolutely no product or even water can get into her eyes. She's really freaky about getting water on her face in the shower, so this works well for us.

When I do the comb out of matted bed head in the morning, I mist thoroughly with water and then use a tiny bit of conditioner as leave in (same stuff we use in the shower), work it through her length and then comb out any tangles and either braid/ponytail or scrunch and wear down. Occasionally I'll use a dab of coconut oil on damp hair as a leave in. Some times I'll add a couple of squirts of AVG to the mister bottle before filling with hot water and shaking well before using. Her hair loves it!

Treat their hair like fine lace, as you would treat your own. Much less change of pulling when combing this way. If child's hair is long enough, braid before bed to avoid tangles.

Children don't generally get oily scalp until the dreaded puberty, so they don't even need the more intensive forms of CO to get their hair clean.

Have fun with your precious babies. They seem to grow up overnight.

[julya]

My son is 3.5 and 90% of the time I use just water on his hair. It never gets greasy, but if it gets food or something in it that won't rinse out, then I shampoo or CO to get it out.

[happymommy]

I CO my 2yr old's waist length hair. She has her own shower cap, which she plays with more than wears, but it keeps her occupied, lol.

She gets a leave in detangler and we braid her hair for bed. In the morning, I mist her hair with distilled water and apply some cocoa butter/jojoba/honey whip to her length. Then I either braid it or put it in some sort of up do (pony/piggies, etc). Her hair is very very fine, but thick. I have yet to find a ponytail holder that will not slip out. The cream gives her hair some grab, kind of like a pomade, and adds some moisture.

As an extra huge benefit, the cream also makes washing out various unidentifiable items from her hair super easy. Sometimes I think she smooshes more food in her hair than in her mouth.

My thought process is if I can figure out now what works for her hair, then when she gets old enough to care about/for it, all the kinks will be worked out for her!

Now watch her want to go chop it all off and dye it neon orange. Thankfully, it is just hair, so if she chops it, it will grow back and she will have some healthy habits to support it. However orange is sooooo not her color. Cross your fingers and hope I can talk her into either pink or candy apply. They are much more suited to her skin ;)

[Eden Iris]

The only LHC habits I've used on my kids are night braiding and metal-free elastics. The little one (20 months) is still using a tiny amount of body soap (CA Baby) on her hair, and the older one (3.5) uses shampoo (either my bar or diluted baby shampoo) and conditioner (Avalon Organics). Both girls have extremely fine hair, and I think CO would make it greasy.

Looking forward to seeing what other answers you get.

ETA: They also share my mister of diluted Aubrey Organics HR conditioner, but that's mainly for fun.